The US is overhauling intelligence access, introducing new measures meant to prevent another mega-leak similar to the one carried out by Edward Snowden from happening again, according to Pentagon’s top officials.

A “two-man rule” is being introduced at the NSA as means of tightening access to top-secret data, according to the agency’s chief Keith Alexander, who was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Thursday.

“We’ll close and lock server rooms so that it takes two people to get in there,” Alexander said.

NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander (AFP Photo / Win Mcnamee)

The practice is taken from the way nuclear weapons are handled, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter explained, adding it is a wise thing to do to protect the system from “some aberrant individual”.

“So when it comes to nuclear weapon… we don’t let people all by themselves do anything. Nobody ever touches a nuclear weapon by him or herself. There are always two people rated in the same specialty. So everybody can see and understand exactly what is being done to that weapon,” Carter said.

Another thing which, according to Deputy Defense Secretary, allowed for a large-scale leak was the fact that the NSA kept all of its information stored on one server. The plan is to have sensitive data segmented, so a new potential leaker won’t be able to do as much damage as Snowden did.

“Loading onto a server creates a security risk…. It’s something we can’t do, because it creates too much information in one place… You do have to compartmentalize [data] more rigidly,” Carter said.

Among other anti-leak measures announced are encrypting data in a more sophisticated way, as well as decreasing the number of system administrators with access to it.

This kind of massive overhaul of the security measures throughout the whole of the US intelligence network would be extremely expensive and will definitely take time, former and current US officials told Reuters, who did not wish to have their names disclosed.

Potential leaks from insiders are also going to be tackled with the help of 40 new cyber teams (27 of them on defense missions, and the remaining 13 entitled to carry out offensive operations).

As for the NSA’s chief, he defended at length the now much criticized spying methods used by the agency, saying “you need a haystack to find a needle.”

General Alexander reiterated that thanks to the mass surveillance programs, dozens of terrorist conspiracies were disrupted and Snowden’s leak led to terrorist groups changing their communications and thus falling out of sight of security agents.

Alexander’s assertions have, however, long been challenged by independent researchers. For example,a US nonprofit think-tank, The New America Foundation, argues that out of the 42 terrorist plots mounted by US homegrown jihadists since 2001, nine resulted in actual terrorist acts and 33 were prevented using conventional intelligence methods such as the use of informants and community reports on suspicious activity.

Israelis are willing to spend last cup of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world – see the video
Their association with us is negative that is fact
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He is lost job!!!! 7:05: Bandit AIPAC ordered to fire this wonderful agent!!! Wow what Israelis bandits are doing!

Tom, you are 100% correct! The problem we have is not foreigners – it is our own rotten leftists, liberals, commies and fascists, who like Rahm Emmanuel are striving to create crises to which they already have destructive “solutions”, and their goal is to reduce the population, destroy the nation, and tyrannize the entire world!!! The BRICS nations are well aware of what is going on, Putin is totally flabbergasted that we Americans are so incredibly moronic as to put up with Kissinger, Soros, Brzezinski, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the US, Inc’s SLIMEBALLS.

You’ve got the players all mixed up, netace. It is the rotten City Of London radical feudal bankers who are the original liberals that created the socialists, the commies and the fascists. These labels are almost meaningless now.

>>>> The New America Foundation argues that out of the 42 terrorist plots mounted by US homegrown jihadists since 2001, nine resulted in actual terrorist acts and 33 were prevented using conventional intelligence methods such as the use of informants and community reports on suspicious activity.

Although the Foundation may be arguing NSA’s spying hasn’t stopped anything, conventional methods have, we can look further than that. It seems like the 33 “prevented” were entrapment exercises which recruited a loser dumb enough the fall for carrying out the agency’s own generated plan which it then “prevented”. The “actual terrorist acts” were all likely false flag attacks with likely agency involvement. The NSA spying is to find out who of us is figuring that out.